~ Love, dating, and relationships

The Cougar Phenomenon

A while ago one of my girlfriends told me, “My son will be back at the gym next week and checking you out.”

Normally I would think to myself, “Ooh, someone’s checking me out?” But the comment from my girlfriend left me wondering, “Did she say her ‘son'”?

My girlfriend’s son is 26 years old. Let’s just say I’m not and haven’t been for a while. Actually, I think he’s almost 26. He probably has a birthday coming up that they’ll celebrate with friends, a cake, and a clown.

Comments like this lead me to wonder why a guy who is 26 (almost) would be checking out my “abs of cupcakes” and not some 22-year-old with “abs of steel.” The very thought of living up to the expectations of a much-younger man causes me to remember my every flaw and wonder if I shouldn’t be exploring my Botox options.

As many of you know, a few years ago I was given the phone number of a super hot, much younger man that I was seated next to on an airplane. Of course I was oblivious as to why he gave it to me because, first of all, men my own age have never hit on me like that. Second of all, why in the world would a super hot, much younger guy give me his phone number when he could be giving it to someone his own age that he met out clubbing or in a college class or playing video games with? My mind just couldn’t understand what was going on.

I know that I’m not the only one dealing with younger men. Besides the famous relationships of Demi Moore with Ashton Kutcher and Julianne Moore and her young ‘un, there is the movie proof in How Stella Got her Groove Back and Flirting With Forty. Of course there are also the Lifetime movies with women who go for the 15-year-old students, but that’s crossing another line.

I know a 26-year-old that has lived with a girlfriend 17 years older for over two years now, and it’s still going strong. Another guy I know married a woman seven years older, and they’re now doing the happily-ever-after thing with kids. One of my college professors once dated a super hot guy 20 years younger that later starred in a major movie, and they held it together for years. Actually, all of them have held it together longer than I was able to hold together a marriage, so I’m definitely not pointing fingers. I’m just in complete awe that these women are so secure with themselves.

So what do these people have in common besides an obvious attraction for Lord knows what reason? I can see why the older women are attracted, but aren’t the young guys drawing the short straw? Do the women need to learn video games to hang out with these guys? I checked out of that department after Ms. Pac Man. Do they need to stay up past ten p.m. to go clubbing? Do they have to learn the lyrics to rap songs or understand what Nicki Minaj says? I stopped learning lyrics after, “Can I get some fries with that shake-shake booty?” Are the women college professors and they met because one of their students was “hot for teacher”? I just don’t understand how this kind of relationship not only happens but how it lasts.

When I was a kid, my mother once whispered to me that a man she knew was three years younger than his wife, and she made it sound like some kind of a taboo. Nowadays we call that “the same age.” More and more often I see relationships with much older women involved with much younger men. I can understand a fling, but what I can’t understand is how it lasts when he’s 55 with salt-and-pepper starting in his hair and she’s 75 and giving up Spanx for a stronger girdle with steel supports. What if the woman is wasting the end of her “prime” in a relationship that won’t last when she should be aligning herself with someone more age appropriate that will start his AARP subscription near the time she does?

And it doesn’t seem as if it’s all about sex for the young guys either since many of the relationships go on for years or result in marriage. Do they have some kind of a “mother complex”? Do they just like independent women with lots of experience? Do they want someone to financially support them? Do they not realize that soon women their own age will have the same curves that older women have? Or do destined souls really recognize each other and, somewhere along the way, the Fates made a mistake in the timing department?

I have to give credit to the women in relationships with much younger men that don’t let the age difference deter them in their quest for love. They must be women with a lot of confidence that have overcome their physical insecurities. Maybe it’s from my years dancing professionally and being forbidden food after a 14-hour rehearsal, but I don’t think I could ever get over my physical insecurities to the point that these other women have. Sure, the super hot guys in their 20s look a lot better than guys my own age, but maybe I’m just at the age where my need for long-term stability outweighs my need for “super hot.”

Older men have been comfortable with much younger women forever, and now some women are able to be comfortable with much younger men. Either way, if Demi Moore can’t hold it together forever with a much younger man, why would the rest of us mere mortals think we could do it? I commend those who can do it but, to the rest of us, as the little white bat in the Anastasia cartoon said, “It can only end in tears.”

If you haven’t read my romance novel inspired by my travel experience with the super hot 20-something guy, it’s only .99 on Amazon!